


Shadowrun Character Prompts

by lesbomancy



Series: Shadowrun Drabbles [1]
Category: Shadowrun
Genre: Cyberpunk, Gen, Original Character(s), Prompt Fic, Shadowrun - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-09-23 09:12:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9649286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbomancy/pseuds/lesbomancy
Summary: Past and recent history of my Shadowrun OCs. Sex, violence, self-loathing, betrayal, and elation. All the highs and lows of character development.





	1. Johnny's Raging Self-Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prompt to examine the point where Johnny felt the lowest about himself.

After four attempts to light his cheap imitation cigar, Johnny tossed the small plastic lighter over the metal chain barrier that separated the sidewalk waterfront from the crashing waves of an approaching monsoon. He turned from the waves, offering a rude gesture before heading back towards Heoi. His funeral finery – a cheap black blazer, trousers and flip flops – was already soaking wet despite the storm only being in its infancy. Twenty-five years, he watched as his parents eked out a living in the unforgiving underbelly of society. SINless, living in a squat of an apartment that had rent hiked way too high for how small it was and almost always wanting for some sort of necessity; food, clean water, or clothes.

But for all his searching, Johnny couldn't remember wanting for much of anything. Even after his sister was born, they'd always be taken care of. It took until they both died for him to realize that most of his memories of them were of their gaunt-faced smiles full of love and affection. The monsoon around him didn't carry with it much sound other than the buffeting wind rattling storefronts, street signs and garbage. Even as it started to pour the streets were full with traffic traveling at a crawl and Johnny bumping shoulders with someone more often than not.

The ork ran a hand over his receding hairline, slicking back the soaking mop of hair as he struggled to beat off the morbid sense of unaccomplished potential. Twenty-five years, and all he'd done so far was run a little food stand that barely provided for the family of four. Paying off one Triad or another for protection, making it through the school generously provided by some AA-corp on a mission to mend a broken public image after some scandal or another.

He contributed to it best he could. He'd roll the dumplings up even before he could see over the cart itself, handing them off to his mother so she could dump them into the frier. Johnny always snuck a few prawns or bits of octopus with each one, earning his fair share of whacks on the knee for his gluttony.

But what the fuck did all that amount to? Two parents, dead. One overworked, the other overcome with grief until he fell over and decided to not wake up one day. Both of them burned to the cinder and placed in tiny ceramic jars, with no grandchildren or even a pair of accomplished children. His sister, Lin, was Shadowrunning. Her life expectancy was at it's peak and her potential was far past wasted just because she didn't get a scholarship or internship thanks to a lack of a SIN. Johnny knew he'd never measure to much; always a little too overweight for sports, a little too uncoordinated for mechanics work.

Too little of something, or too much of something else for anything that resembled outstanding. That was “Johnny” Gao in a nutshell. Always smiling, always friendly, always there for a neighbor but that meant absolutely nothing in forty, fifty years when he'd be in the same spot as his parents. Working the same dead-end that he had been since he was twelve until his hands shook too much to roll the dumplings and he wouldn't have strength to push the cart, because he knew for sure unless he got really lucky he wasn't going to adopt some kid to live in squalor with him just to have them feel the same way after he dropped dead.

He squinted through the sheets of rain that beat down on his soaking blazer, ducking into the alley that would cover him from most of the storm as he made a mostly straight path back to the flat that he and his sister shared. Just as busy as the street, with water pouring into the unprotected center of the alley in a steady trickle as he and the rest of the traffic regulated themselves underneath the awnings, each storefront window glaring back at him with bright animated neon, flashing and beckoning him to enter and waste some nuyen.

Not that he had a lot to waste, everything his parents had they all shared and unless he suddenly made the best damn dumplings in Hong Kong there was always something to keep him beat down, brow to the floor and poor as it all fucking came. That pit rolling in his gut, the feeling of worthlessness seeped like a good tea until he crossed the threshold at his flat. One that was a lot bigger, now that he could get rid of his air mattress in the corner.

The deadbolt to the door clicked as he offloaded himself of his soaking clothes onto a hook in the wall, the dingy fluorescent lighting offering little respite from his mood. A question burned like an iron against his brain, one constantly repeated until it was acknowledged: what are you going to do, Johnny? Spend the rest of your days dealing with the drek that your parents did, or become something better?

As he flung his trousers into a pile of dirty laundry, he found himself without an answer. Half-naked, sitting in an apartment with a blood smear on the wall behind an ancient recliner that the past tenant so unfortunately left as a reminder.

There had to be more to Johnny Gao. There had to be something to him.

He just wasn't sure what it was.


	2. Stim's Lonely Self-Satisfaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ming Tsou, aged 11, reveling in one of her earliest successes.

Ming stuck her left thumb in her mouth, chewing at the nail already gnawed to the nub. The flash and hum of the outdated computer screen in front of her barely illuminated the squat that she had found in friendly territory – a friend of a friend of her parents owned it. Supposedly they died at some point in the last week, though she wasn't going to mourn them. Between the chaos of the Triad they belonged to losing 10 blocks and the fact that they never once treated her like anything resembling a daughter except when it came time to physically vent their frustrations, the girl was happy to see them gone.

As long as she had a computer, she was happy. The cyberdeck she had bargained for with some excess jewelry was old enough to be used by her grandfather, but after popping it open and switching out the CPU for one half it's age, it made due for her purposes: escape. Decking was hard when you had one arm, but not as hard as half the shit you had to do in meat space without one. She managed to get as far as she did, after all, but without a datajack she was as handicapped as she could get. No amount of speed with one hand could change the fact that the brain sending commands to the hand and the hand typing on the keyboard was just too long compared to a decker who was jacked in fully, their avatar a virtual representation moving as fast as the synapses in their brain could fire.

She didn't need a datajack or a top-level deck to do what she did. Most entry level gang bangers like the Triad that her parents worked for were all the same: low tech morons who kept their shit mostly unsecured because they couldn't afford real protection. It was prime real estate for cyberwarfare or Shadowrunners, not that Ming knew a thing about the latter personally. She'd managed to find her way to the Shadowlands BBS ages ago and taught herself a working amount of English so she was able to read a lot of what wasn't in Cantonese or Mandarin.

Besides, dreams of becoming a fabled cyberwarrior of justice had to wait – the Red Lion Triad weren't known for their charity. Ming was supposed to be busy finding out as much as she could about one of the Deadly Crane Triad member's financial information. Slipping into the well-off apartment building was the easy part – nobody looked at you when you were a young girl with one arm and dirty cheeks. Sure, security officers shooed you away but more often than not you'd get a few nuyen for looking poor.

Those same people that looked down on her with pity didn't second glance her as she squatted in an alleyway playing with wires, either. Most of them probably assumed she was rummaging in the trash while she plugged herself into the building's closed system. One jaunt back to her current abode and a simple keystroke.. and she was in. Only a few terabytes of information, but enough so that the Red Lions would let her stay around a little longer, and probably pay her out of pocket depending on how far up the information went. 

She rolled back against the wall, the bed underneath her creaking loudly in protest at the motion. Her fingers burned from the excitement as her external drive went from empty to full, knowing that the the drive she installed on street level wouldn't survive the rain come morning. Ming pressed her fingers on her cheek until the knuckles cracked, smiling widely at minimal effort, maximum outcome. The Deadly Cranes would be fuming, a few of them probably shitting themselves all because elven year-old Ming Tsou walked right up to one of their chief money men and plugged a 12 nuyen adapter into their high-tech wireless system.

All in all, she'd be able to afford a datajack in a few months. Then she'd really fly.


	3. Nathaniel's Utter Lack Of Happiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathaniel Driver -- a Runner who fancies himself a whistleblower, vigilante, and do-gooder -- reflects on the worst night of his life, when he was still a legitimate wage slave. Before it all collapsed.
> 
> Day 3 of Challenge Yourself: A Month of Fanfiction

Late night wind picked up, forcing him to adjust his scope. At nearly a mile out, he had to be exact with everything or else the job would be a bust. The PDA on the right of his sniper's nest flashed a few times and alerted him to new posts on the Shadowlands BBS. Once he was sure he had the best accuracy possible given the height differences of the two skyscrapers he moved to turn the PDA off. Zero hour was about five minutes ago and any further distractions, even from the client, could make him sloppy and spell out his doom. Not that the mark had much in the ways of security. When you spent your entire life grinding your heel into preventing SINless and the lower class from achieving affordable medical care by raking up hospital bill prices, you were a hated man but not typically one in danger of being shot.

Usually, people died of what they couldn't afford to fix before the idea crossed into their heads. For once a pharmaceutical company managed to want the right thing done for reasons unknown to Nathaniel: kill the corp suit and bounce. He's had worse experiences while waiting in line for a soycaf or a cheeseburger. The helicopter that lit up the sky had the logo on the side that was definitely the one holding the mark. The .308 nestled against his shoulder firmly, as if it were made to be there and he licked his lips, watching the counter on the top of the scope that gave him a digital readout of the wind speed and direction. AS the helicopter landed he closed his eye to readjust it's focus and began to steady his breathing, measuring it in variables of 5-5. Five seconds of inhalation, five seconds of exhalation. His hand was steady, and whatever residiual shakiness he had steadied out in the time it took for the helicopter's rotors to power down. The mark appeared from around the far door, a well-dressed man with a receding hairline and a suit that cost more than his car.

His calloused finger drew along the cold metal of the trigger, hesitant to commit until the kill shot was certain. When a younger girl, a teenager, burst from the roof access door and threw herself into the arms of his mark he only hesitated further. She was small, skinny, he could get the mark with a headshot and avoid damaging the girl but the world around him felt cold with recognition. Repetition. Like a broken record, cruelly putting him in the chair of the man he hated most.

Nathaniel was the man hugging his daughter. He was the man clutching his wife, kissing her cheek, smelling the sickly sweet strawberry shampoo she'd picked up after finally finding something without too much artificial vanilla in the scent. He loved the strawberry, it smelled like a garden, like the one he grew up with. His breathing hitched as he saw his face; younger by almost a decade, with no gray in his hair or lines around his eyes and mouth. He wasn't nearly as hardened, like a blunted blade without the cruel markings of a whetstone.

A small suburban house; a rarity in the Sixth World. He had the nuyen to pay for it as a security chief, a man who took down Runners and corporate spies for a living. He made the mistake of stopping someone from Ares Macrotechnology, and a contractor was called in to teach him - and the company he worked for - a lesson. The idyllic day where he and his family barbecued artificial ribs basked in artificial sauce that tasted just the same as anything any other American would grill in the 1950's turned into a bloodbath after hours of soaking in the sun, discussing his daughter's future doctorate and his wife's work. Much like he was now, Horus Schronoff took his place on that day. He pulled the trigger sooner, not hesitating. It took him years to discover that it was him. His head spun, his stomach churned. He felt the fresh and warm splash of crimson as his wife's head contorted from a smile to a mass of mangled bone, hair, and flesh thanks to a .50 caliber bullet to her temple. He felt the same as his daughter's head separated from her body and rolled onto the glass patio table, a perfect neck shot that shattered her spinal column. His breathing hitched and his bottom lip quivered, knowing that to this girl he'd be the monster that Schronoff was to him.

He squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked his shoulder like an angry mule, his hand catching the shell casing out of the air. He slipped it in his breast pocket and disassembled his rifle. In ten seconds, he went from a heavily fortified sniper to a ghost. The mark's brains were scattered across his daughter and the wall next to him. There'd be no trace. Just like Schronoff.


End file.
